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LEARNING NOT TO RUSH THINGS

I rush. I rush through the week to get to the weekend, and then I rush through the weekend to get to the next exciting thing I’m doing in that 48 hour period. I rush through the months to get to the next big celebration – birthdays, holidays, Christmas. The list goes on.

I even rush through my relationship – first the one year milestone, then the moving in together, then the ring, the house and everything else that comes with it. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop, I just want everything all at once and once I have one thing then I’m itching to get onto the next. I don’t know how to sit still and just enjoy the natural progression of life and everything that comes with it and it’s starting to frustrate me.

Even when it comes to my blog, I want to rush from one milestone to another – I want to see the progress and the growth all at once rather than just sitting back and enjoying the ride. I don’t like this about myself though, it leads to far to much over analysis about situations that really don’t require over analysis, it leads to a constant frantic feeling, a feeling of not being able to sit still and comparison to everyone around me to see where they’re at and what they’re doing.

It’s only as I approach my 26th birthday that I’ve realised how much I need to sit back and relax and just let life take me on the journey it wants to take me on rather than rushing my way through. Before I know it I’ll be 70 and looking back on my 20s and 30s and wishing that I hadn’t wished them all away before I had chance to live them. I do wonder if sometimes it’s partly my anxiety that is at fault here – I’ve struggled through mental illness for many, many years and I resent it because I feel like I wasted most of the last 10 years. It’s like I’m trying to make up for all of it at once by fulfilling all of these adult milestones at the same time to prove to myself that I’m really doing it, living and breathing and achieving.

This time last year, I set myself a goal for my 25th year and I’m going to talk about this more in a video soon, but perhaps my goal for 26 should be to take a step back, allow the good times to come to me and to just enjoy life as it happens. At the end of the day, I’m only going to be young in London once! No more rushing, no more putting myself under pressure. Slow down, take a breath and let what happens happen. At the end of the day, it will all be ok in the end and if it’s not ok, it’s not the end.